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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful worldas it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things rightif I surrender to His Will;That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with HimForever in the next.Amen.

I just wanted to post this. I was thinking we say the Serenity Prayer so often and some of us don't even know there is more to it! So here it is! It's kind of funny that this was written most likely in 1934. Right around the time A.A. came to fruition. Very interesting. Maybe Reinhold was one of us? lol. Seriously doubt it but who knows.

Interestingly enough the long form of the prayer wasn't written by Niebuhr. just the part we recite in meetings was and that wasn't exactly what the poet said. His version was:

"Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other."

almost the version we know today. I believe it was Alcoholics Anonymous who changed the wording, no doubt to illustrate that it's God as we understand Him and using the word "Father" indicates a specific religion. the year sounds right from what I've read late 30s early 40s.

The extra verses were added by a guy named William Spence in 1953.

Incidentally, we used the long version at our wedding because it encapsulates much of what we learn in AA, living one day at a time, trusting in god, praying for knowledge of His will instead of ours. All in all its a useful prayer, no question about it.

Interestingly enough the long form of the prayer wasn't written by Niebuhr. just the part we recite in meetings was and that wasn't exactly what the poet said. His version was:

"Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other."

almost the version we know today. I believe it was Alcoholics Anonymous who changed the wording, no doubt to illustrate that it's God as we understand Him and using the word "Father" indicates a specific religion. the year sounds right from what I've read late 30s early 40s.

The extra verses were added by a guy named William Spence in 1953.

Incidentally, we used the long version at our wedding because it encapsulates much of what we learn in AA, living one day at a time, trusting in god, praying for knowledge of His will instead of ours. All in all its a useful prayer, no question about it.

Thanks for reminding me how useful it is.

Thanks for history lesson Wolfie. I knew about half of that or could it be that I'd forgotten the other half.

Awesome that you used it in your wedding! I never even thought about having some reference to AA included in our wedding and I should've as we had a dozen or so friends in the program attend. Many more were invited but the wedding was held in my Wife's hometown 60 miles away from what I've called home for the last 17 years.

That full version has hung on my bedroom wall for many years, and it was incorporated into my wedding ceremony (It still ended n divorce) around 12 years ago, and it will also feature in my funeral service (hopefully in about 60 more years or so - in which case I may also qualify as the oldest recovering alkie on the planet)

Steve - No alcohol at my wedding, but the majority of people attending were either in recovery or non-drinkers, so it wasn't required.

St. Pete - opening our wedding with that prayer was my wife's suggestion. I think I mentioned in another post, probably on the Al-Anon Board, that our ceremony was filled with things like that. the Prayer of St. Francis, the Footprints poem, vows we wrote ourselves, and the song One day at A Time as we left the church.

We invited all of you to attend. Didn't you get the invitation? It was in the December 1999 issue of the AA Grapevine. "Invitation to a Wedding."